ALL SHOTS

Identity theft, drug dealing and murder—what’s going on in Cambridge, Mass.?

Canine writer, trainer and Malamute maven Holly Winter (Gaits of Heaven, 2006, etc.) is asked to help find a Siberian husky gone missing from the home of its sitter, gentle, mentally challenged dog lover Mellie O’Leary. Unfortunately, her search turns up the remains of another Holly Winter, dead on the kitchen floor of Mellie’s absent neighbor, Zach Ho. Just that morning Holly had returned home to find a strange biker looking for someone named Holly Winter who’s supposed to have something for him. Knowing that there are others of that name living in the area, she convinces him that she’s the wrong Holly. Then a third Holly Winter who knows Zach accuses Holly No. 1 of identity theft. When Lt. Kevin Dennehy shows her a picture of an unusual blue Malamute found among the forms of identity stolen from Holly No. 3’s garbage, our heroine reaches out to her contacts in the dog world in an attempt to trace the animal. Her sources suspect it may have belonged to a former breeder who was involved in drugs and took off, leaving his dogs to starve. Holly No. 1 encounters a passel of trouble as she tries to discover what’s going on in the strange world of too many Holly Winters.

Second-drawer Conant is still a dog-lover’s delight that reveals everything you want to know about Alaskan Malamutes.